Defence not scents should worry Woodward

They came in their tens of thousands to welcome the world champions home, but they stayed to salute an Irish victory that reasserted the essential unpredictability of the Six Nations championship. Though it was easy to sympathise with the disappointment of the Twickenham regulars, particularly those who had not been in Sydney for the World Cup final, the end of England's long unbeaten record will do nothing but good to the health of rugby in the northern hemisphere.

According to a placard hanging in a prominent position on the wall of England's weights room, "greatness is achieved through the discipline of attention to detail". On Saturday, however, it was not a lack of attention to detail which caused the problems. It was the big picture that slipped out of focus.

When that happens, the minutiae - the fresh kit at half-time, the nameplate over each man's berth in the dressing room, the regular blood and hair tests, the research into providing personalised aromatherapy inhalers - start to look faintly ridiculous. So beloved of Sir Clive Woodward, suddenly they seem to count for little next to the ability to make first-up tackles stick, to gain primary possession as if by right, and to turn the course of a game that is starting to run away from you.

Woodward would no doubt be correct to contend that the details were a vital part of the campaign that ended in victory in the World Cup last November. Defeat at the hands of the hugely motivated and tactically astute Irish does not strip England of their standing as the world's leading team. But it will force the head coach and his assistants to take a close look at what they have been doing since the beginning of the year.

"We concentrate on why we win games rather than why we lose them," Woodward said afterwards, and a primary reason for their success in the past has been the quality of the leadership on the field. There is no point in bemoaning the retirement of Martin Johnson and the enforced absence of Jonny Wilkinson, but Lawrence Dallaglio, in particular, will be inviting himself to exert a stronger influence on the currents of the game when he leads England out against Wales next week.

With just under a quarter of an hour to go on Saturday, England had worked them selves back to within a score of their opponents. At that point Johnson would have taken his players by the throat and shaken a final effort out of them, as he did when he created the platform for Wilkinson's winning drop goal in Sydney. As they flung themselves into attack against the Irish, however, no one was thinking clearly about how to set up a try-scoring position and execute the coup de grace.

"We've been in pressure situations that we've come through in the last year," Richard Hill said afterwards, "but maybe today we weren't as clinical as we have been. We never made the clinical break, the break that puts you into space and ends up with someone walking over the try-line. It wasn't a game like that today. Anyone who caught the ball was always under a huge amount of pressure."

Though accusations of complacency would withstand scrutiny no more successfully than the familiar charges of arrogance, it may be that the England squad went into the third game of the Six Nations season a little too comfortable with the expectation of success. Hardly surprising, given the adulation that greeted their return after the World Cup. But the signs of fallibility had been there in the performances against Italy and Scotland. And on Saturday it could be said that Ireland merely finished off the job that Samoa and Wales began but were unable to complete.

What really matters is what happens next. "We've had a lot of success," Woodward said with quiet emphasis, "and we've got to make sure you know how to lose as well."

The players' demeanour was interesting. Subdued but forthright, they were not interested in disguising or dismissing the huge flaws that cost them the chance to go for a second grand slam in a row. None was more impressive in his reaction than Josh Lewsey, who had spent most of the afternoon stuck on the fringes of the action.

"Somebody asked me earlier in the week how many points we were going to win by," the 27-year-old Wasps back said. "I told him that this team is too long in the tooth and has had too many setbacks. That's why we became the No1 team in the world. You learn from your mistakes and you learn never to be complacent. The guys lost in Dublin, at Wembley, at Murrayfield and in Paris, and these results strengthen your resolve. They make you stronger and you bounce back.

"A team can't go unbeaten for ever, and now that it's out of the way we can go back and concentrate on our performance. We'll take it on the chin, and take the positives out of today. There weren't that many. But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and you learn a lot more about yourself at times like this than you do from running in 50 points. We've had lots of elation in that dressing room over the past 12 months, and it's a strange feeling, but one you've got to take in and realise how much it hurts, because that's what drives you on."

England have not suddenly become a bad team, nor Ireland a great one. But the rest of us can be grateful for a result which ensures that nothing in this competition can be taken for granted.